Five hundred hourly employes struck the firm's plants in Newark and Maplewood Friday morning is a dispute over wages and other fringe benefits.
Richard R. Wiss, company president, said he had offered an 11-cent hourly hike in the first year with two additional increases over the next two years until a 24-cent hourly raise was reached.
Anthony Cesaro, president of Local 325, Retail, Wholesale & Department Store Workers, AFL-CIO, to which the employes belong, disputed Wiss' contention. Cesaro said that the company president offered only a seven-cent raise in the first year with seven and six-cent raises in the two succeeding years.
The company's present contract with the union expired Thursday night.